come into harmony with your existence.
There’s a great law in the cosmos: like attracts like. This attraction is a great secret and power if one can wholly realize its implications. When I truly realize that I am continually attracting to myself what is resounding within, I am offered the opportunity to turn inward and reflect on who I think I am, and who I know I am not. With time, these reflections result in the disintegration of the false narratives passed on by social conditioning: I was not created haphazardly to be commodified, stripping me of my soulful essence, and I refuse to be a pawn in an illusory game of meritocracy and capital worship. Rather, I am a collaborator in the creation of my own reality and I am exponentially more powerful than I’ve ever been socialized to think.
Harmony suggests agreement or concord. To come into harmony means to agree on certain things. Consider what it would mean to come into agreement with the following concepts:
We have a physical husk that we walk around and live in that is mortal, impermanent, and temporary
We have a force that resides in the husk that brings us to life, allowing us to think, feel, judge, discern, sense, contemplate, meditate, dream, execute, problem-solve, and so forth
We know for sure that the physical body will experience a fatal transition
There is nothing random, chance, coincidental, or haphazard in the universe; everything is in intentional relationship
A Higher Power, Order, Force, Organizing Principle, God, Universe, Divinity exists
The characteristic of life is continuous change, growth, evolution, and transition
Considering all of this: what is the purpose of your presence?
My aim is not to write some sacred text. Through my own reflection and journeying, I'm starting to realize that no matter how much I do, how much I say, how much I read, synthesize, contemplate, assess, analyze: the profundities of this human experience cannot be fully and comprehensively articulated. That would be like asking a fish to climb a tree. Much of what we will experience as humans simply cannot be put into words. Attempting to linguistically-articulate certain experiences would heartbreakingly diminish them. Soulbreakingly. Thus, giving myself permission to speak on complex subject matter while releasing the expectation and belief that I can fully expound it has been wildly liberating. This rumination serves as a contemplation point for an experience that you genuinely have to feel, bear witness to, and encounter in your own way, on God's time.
Each person on this planet serves a distinct purpose. It's hard to believe this nowadays because we live in densely-packed communities and are all vying for jobs, opportunities, and spotlight: essentially, resources that are purposely and strategically made scarce. Competition allows for the false belief system of meritocracy: the one who is most qualified, most hard-working, most 'worthy' receives the resource. This false belief system keeps us in a trap of competition and comparison and births a host of limited beliefs on one's purpose, place, and right to exist within their respective ecosystem. If you can imagine life prior to big cities, industrialization, domestication, and capitalism, we all lived with our respective tribes playing our necessary roles, which created harmony in our community's organization, and occasionally encountered other tribes along the way. It's much easier in this dynamic to feel belonging and purpose, as each member was carefully considered by the whole, the role of each person within the community was highly emphasized and explicitly named as essential to the health of the entire unit, and well, there was more intentional connection (e.g., social communing for major milestones in one's life, grief circles, storytelling, general dissemination via oral recounting of traditions). What really makes this tribe-like environment effective was the quality within the quantity: the density of people was more manageable.
Living in these bigger cities where the density is high and a sense of community is elusive can make one feel lost in the sauce. It can make one feel purposeless, as there's "too many fish in the pond." In these industrialized nations where the aim is to be efficient, rapid, productive, and effective, there's little room for those who don't fit the mould, little time to discover one's self, gifts, strengths, and purpose, and little appreciation for those attempting to heal their self and others from the devastation of mass consumption, inhumane living, spiritless connection, and planetary negligence.
So far, the essence of what I'm trying to share is: do not look to current society to validate your existence. Current society is not made to see the human in all its splendor. It's not interested in your fullest expression and life experience. If you are indeed on the search or in contemplation of your divine purpose (because you do have one), then releasing the desire for society to see you, honor you, and understand you is the first step. It doesn't necessarily mean you need to divest from society (although that would be something to consider), it just means recognizing that your environment is not conducive to this kind of self-introspection. It means you will eventually have to develop your own hierarchy of values, your own authentic conscience. Continuing to utilize the one given to you by society, knowing it's end goal is self-mutilation and domination, is a recipe for madness and spiritual death.
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Go into nature and just sit for a moment. Witness the various forms of life. The same force that animates the parts of nature that leave you in awe, animates you. The more you come into realization and harmony with this supreme fact of life, the more you come into awareness of the magnificence and awesomeness of your creation. Surely, the amazingness of your creation was not done in vain. We are all born with different gifts. Each person's gifts are uniquely theirs, although variations will indubitably exist in others. At the end of the day, we humans have a lot more in common than we have different. But once again, living in today's society deliberately pins our gifts against one another, making us compare and compete for the *one* role/position in society where said gift is most valued at highest efficiency, speed, productivity, and effectiveness. This is anti-social, anti-human behavior. This environment does not support healthy human growth, exploration, evolution, or learning. It's detrimental and toxic to human-life development. We have to recognize the water we are drinking, eating, sleeping, learning, socializing, and swimming in.
I was speaking to a friend and she shared her grief of having increased financial and social resources that gave her access to many privileges and pleasures of life. She contemplated 'why me?;' why did she have this access, what was she supposed to do with these privileges- the appropriate guilt that comes from having material riches that seem to be the bane of many people's existence. I too have contemplated this: although I don't have many material riches, I have familial, intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic riches. I remember spending lots of energy ignoring these riches, diminishing or downplaying them so that I could fit in. I would pretend to struggle in certain areas of my life, which only created dissonance, distortions in my gratitude, and general spiritual blindness. I refused to see the gifts of my existence. This dampened my access and clarity around my purpose. So, when having this discussion with my friend, my response was: well, who is going to lead others out of suffering, if we're all suffering in the same ways, at the same time? It clicked for my friend as it did for me a few months ago, that part of my purpose, with the gifts of my current existence, was to offer access to the resources that I had been born with, into, and developed throughout my life. I am meant to support others who don't have the same privileges, not from a place of superiority or hierarchy, but from an indebtedness that I have to the Creator. "Every blessing ignored becomes a curse." - The Alchemist. When we ignore our blessings and gifts, they become points of tension. They become debts. The energy of them weighs heavy on our hearts, knowing we can alleviate so much suffering for someone else. This life we have is a loan from God, and the question remains: what will we do with it?
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There is a Palestinian expression: "The God in me kisses the God in you." Recognizing the Godliness that exists within each other can help demystify this concept of purpose: in essence, we are all variations of God's spirit. The animating force that runs through us and the entire living, animate world is God's essence. When we act in accordance to what our soul recognizes as aliveness, love, and freedom, we are enacting God's will through our actions. Living our purpose means we live in a way that allows our soul to be experienced while being in this human body. It means bringing our cognizance of Spirit through our thoughts, words, and actions, so that we can meet other souls, thus meeting the variations of God's essence. It means getting clear on what makes one feel alive.
What are you good at?
What makes you feel fully alive?
What could you do for the rest of your life as a means of service, regardless of recognition or compensation?
What adds richness to your life experiences?
What is something you can do tirelessly, without regard for time, space, or physical needs (i.e., sleep, eat)?
What do you enjoy talking about endlessly?
What drains your energy, makes you feel dull, unmotivated, and uninspired?
What is some thing/action/experience that you can't live without?
What do you daydream about?
What keeps you up at night?
What feels like a natural, God-given gift or ability of yours?
These questions encourage contemplation and self-inquiry: they require courage to be answered curiously and sincerely. They also reveal your unique soul's yearnings, interests, gifts, tendencies, and persuasions. This information is GOLD. When these answers become clearer in your consciousness, the nature of your thoughts begin to change. Thoughts are a potent force. Clear and committed thoughts can will your abstract longings into concrete manifestations. If you think like the person you believe you are meant to be, then as the cosmic law goes, you will magnetize and materialize the concrete reality of those thoughts. Soon, you'll find yourself in social circles, environments, and contributions that allow for your soul and purpose to come through. The contributions that you make to your scaled, chosen tribe of people will be valued, honored, and met with love, adoration, and appreciation. Your clarity of vision, purpose, and presence will inspire and encourage others to seek deeply within themselves for their version of this presentation. When you recognize the Divine wisdom of your physical impermanence, the power of the life force that resides within, the transformative teacher of death and transition, the cosmic coherence and purposeful sequence of life events, the Infinite Spirit that is continually organizing all things, and that life is going to change, twist, turn, backflip, parallel double-park that MF sideways *I've been serious this whole time y'all, let me rock out* regardless of what you do because that is just the nature of life, there's a distinct awakening that occurs.
You realize you are not separate from others and that you have ZERO control in this wild universe, and how could you? You are part of a cosmos with 7.8 billion people, on a floating elemental ball called Earth, in the middle of infinite galaxies, as part of a larger Universe. Like... COME ON. Zooming out and remembering the real deal, the actual facts of life, is so key. Often times we unconsciously construct a pseudo reality, not as a reflection of our God-given power, but as a protective barrier from having to acknowledge the true nature of human life. Our efforts in creating our own reality would exponentially serve us better if we came into harmony with the laws of the Universe.
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My distillation on the purpose and meaning of our existence? We are created to experience the beautiful tension of being souls in a material body. The tension is beautiful because without the physical body, our souls would have no container to experience material life, which has MUCH to offer. There's tension because the material body has its limitations, which the soul does not have. If we lose sight of our spiritual nature, we become attached and married to this human experience, which makes us lose sight of its temporary, fluctuating, and limited nature. If we lose sight of our material reality, we dissociate from the present journey of the soul, which is to be in human form and access the learnings, wisdom, and experiences that are part and parcel to this Earthly journey. Essentially, we have to learn to hold two truths: we are limitless souls, having a limited human experience.
Holding multiple truths creates tension because part of our material nature is to grasp onto and hoard physical and material experiences. The physical husk experiences deterioration, especially when we are living in unsustainable, rapacious, violent, inconsiderate, and imbalanced ways. In order to attenuate this constant barrage of thoughts about our impermanence and slow crawl towards death, we try to adopt belief systems and doctrines that switch off this awareness, and allow us to avoid the reality of our temporary nature. When one's relationship to death is underdeveloped, the constant trepidation and precariousness of human life can be quite stressful. So we obsess over material pursuits, deny the existence of spirit and energy, and attach ourselves to our physical husk, ultimately over-identifying with our material nature and forgetting that we are souls FIRST. It's an adaptive strategy to counteract the reminder that we will die and no one knows when. The contradiction here is that when we remain unattached to life and choose to remain conscious of our impermanent nature, we actually become inspired to experience, feel, and discover life all the way to its seams and edges, knowing we aren't here forever. This avoidance of mortal human reality is also made futile by the wisdom of our soul, which knows it's not from here, and knows its going to return to its source at some point. The soul does not adhere to time, space, or Earthly demands and rules, and it has an affinity for discovery and transformation.
For some of us, the more in tune we are with our life force, the more we begin to notice a strong internal resistance to a life of complacency and rule following. It's just so intolerably dissatisfying and unfulfilling. Not everyone will experience these pangs of discontent, and I would argue that not everyone in life will uncover the depths of their existence or life's purpose. If there's a general contentment with one's life unfolding, then I would say that person is living on purpose through their gratitude and acceptance of what is. We may not all choose or have the capacity to uncover the great mysteries of life. The wisdom in that statement lies only with God. However, there are individuals that aptly desire more meaningful life revelations, that yearn for harmony between their inner essence and outer form, and there is nothing more painful that being someone in this category and having no direction, support, or clarity on how to pursue that yearning.
To live in a human body is rare gift.
- Richard Strozzi-Heckler
A lovely friend of mine shared an impression that I left with her: she described me as a 'Haenyeo.' A Haenyeo translates to 'sea women,' and refers to a subset of female divers in the South Korean province of Jeju, who swim to unimaginable depths (30 meters/98 feet) and can hold their breath for up to 3 minutes, to harvest a variety of mollusks, seaweed and other sea life for their community's benefit. They train from young, and they expose themselves to a variety of dangers including jellyfish, poor weather, and sharks. They are known for their independent spirit, iron will, and determination. My friend Ahran reflected this impression to me as analogous to the way I dive deeply within my self and retrieve profound insights and perspective for my community's benefit. I was so touched to receive this comparison. I felt in that moment that someone I hadn't known for very long witnessed the God in me and reminded me of the training, sacrifice, brutal terrains I've had to cross, and meaningful contributions I was making to a larger whole. And although I could never understand or even be a true Haenyeo because deep waters scare the shit out of me, in that moment, Ahran helped me recognize one of my many purposes in life (because you have many purposes, and they change as you change): as of now, I am here to dive to unimaginable depths within myself, to fully live into my sheer will, independence, and determination, and to recuperate precious, wonder-full, awe-inspiring, and liberating truths of what it means to be a soul living in a human body. I am a spiritual Haenyeo.
Merging the Maps of Body, Observe, Speak:
BODY: I really love the quote by Strozzi-Heckler in this rumination: 'To live in a human body is a rare gift." Goodness, when I first read that, I was stunned. It is a RARE GIFT to have access to this human experience. This is all the more reason and evidence that you were created with divine intention and purpose. So I offer that you sincerely answer the questions above, and let their responses come to you from your body. Let your body respond, via pulsations, quickening heartbeat, warmth, body sighs, expansion, and so forth. Invite your body into the contemplations surrounding your gifts and purpose. Your responses may surprise you.
SPEAK: I've been learning over the past few months how much my body craves to hear my voice, especially when something has been troubling me or when I've been dealing with nonstop transition. My body's craving comes from wanting verbal confirmation of the energy and thoughts its been sensing during those times. So I offer you to speak out loud, and I know I say this often, but truly: put your voice, the vibration of your vocal chords, the sound of your being into the ether by responding to some of these questions out loud. If you feel clear on some of your gifts, speak them out loud. You can use a phrase like 'I am gifted with..." or "I was created to..." Remember, your thoughts are forces. But they live in the unseen, energetic realm. When you speak these thoughts out loud, they become materialized and tangible, which is helpful to our outer form that is made of matter.
OBSERVE: I almost want to say, 'do this exercise and watch your life change,' but that feels presumptuous. But yet here we are: carefully (full of care), consider the cosmic law of 'like attracts like.' Consider the supreme fact of human life that all living things are animated by God's essence. Consider that your thoughts are powerful forces that shape your energetic signature, which shapes and influences your material reality. Consider the many ways in which society has clipped your wings and steered you into the deep wells of self-deprecation, inadequacy, unworthiness, superficiality, and materialism. Consider the truth that you are a soul having an embodied experience, and the tension you feel is a result of being indoctrinated to respect and honor only your physical form. Consider that there are many individuals like yourself that are yearning for more harmony and meaning in their lives, and that if you too have this longing, you are exactly on time and ready for this transformation. Now: respond to those above questions and watch your life change.
Love love. -aa
**schedule a complimentary un-earthing call with me here.
